Help:Established Standards/Miscellaneous Rules
Anything here is semantics-based and won't be strictly enforced, nor will you be punished for any breaks. It is more for unified content and spelling throughout. 'Spelling/Grammar' All spelling is requested to be in American English since cards released in the TCG are printed in American English. For those of you who use British English, I apologize in advance. If you need a guide to differentiate American and British English, use the table below. 'Differences between American/British spellings.' 'Grammar' Words considered to be proper nouns, proper adjectives etc. have their first letters capitalized, while common nouns, common adjectives etc. don't unless used at the start of the sentence. Some card game terminology is capitalized different than normal English. The capitalizations used in gameplay terminology should be used on this site. Gameplay terms which use all capital letters, include: * Attributes: LIGHT, DARK, FIRE, WATER, EARTH, WIND and DIVINE ** For card pages, only capitalize the first letter. * ATK and DEF * FLIP (only when used at the beginning of Flip Effect Monsters' lores) Gameplay terms which begin in capital letters include: * Types e.g. Aqua, Beast-Warrior * Battle positions: Attack Position and Defense Position * Types of cards e.g. Trap Card, Normal Monster, Continuous Spell Card ** Types of Effect monster such as Gemini and Tuner do not capitalize the "m" in monster. * Types of Summons and Sets * Phases and Steps * Decks: Main Deck, Extra Deck, Side Deck * Locations on the playing field. e.g. GY, Monster Card Zone * Effect types * Spell Speeds * Types of games * Other words which are capitalized include: ** Attribute ** Tribute ** Type (removed from text in series 10). Gameplay terms which do not start with a capital letter, but are sometimes mistaken for starting with them include: * Battle (when used by itself) * Banish (formerly "remove from play") * Card (when used by itself) * Damage (when used by itself) * Damage Calculation * Draw (The action, not the game result) * Hand * Monster (when used by itself or after types of Effect Monsters, such as Gemini or Tuner) 'Quotation marks' In prose, card names are always written in quotation marks. e.g. "Dark Magician". When a portion of a card name that may refer to a group of cards is used, it is also written in quotation marks. e.g. "Elemental HERO". If the last word in a sentence is within quotation marks, the period is only placed inside the quotation marks if it is part of the material being quoted. If the period is not part of the quoted material it is left outside. The same applies for commas. This practice is known as logical punctuation. In the United States and Canada, it is more common to leave periods and commas inside the quotation marks irrespective of whether it is part of the material being quoted. This practice is known as traditional punctuation. Yu-Gi-Oh! cards use logical punctuation, so the same is usually used on this site. In all major forms of English, whether question marks and exclamation marks go inside or outside the quotes depend on whether they are part of the material being quoted. '"Can" vs "May"' In "proper" English, you would use "can" is ABILITY to do something, whereas you use "may" to describe something you have/requesting PERMISSION to do, whereas . Colloquially, the former is used for both cases. With Yugioh, you are not requesting permission, but rather that you are able to a certain action if the conditions are met; hence you use "CAN". However in some cases like with Speed Duel Skill Cards, "may" is indeed used, so adapt based on that. Most of the time, it is "CAN", 'Date formats' 'Calendar' By default, we use the Gregorian calendar for this Wikia in terms of fanfic writing and so forth. You may use other existing calendars such as the Japanese era one (i.e. Heisei 31; Reiwa 1), etc. or make up your own calendar as your story requires, though you are required to give a conversion for the former. For custom calendars, it is helpful if you provide a conversion, but isn't required. Ideally, just use the Gregorian calendar for dates unless your story requires that custom one. 'Date Writing' When writing dates, please use the month-day-year (i.e. November 7, 2012), though you may also write dates as they are commonly given in East Asia (year-month-day) instead. If you use the American system, it's advised that you don't write it as 11/7/2012 because it may be read as July 11 to those who use the international system. It is preferred (but not required) that you use B.C. and A.D. instead of B.C.E or C.E, as the official series uses the former. You may use the latter if you wish to be conservative and not offend non-Christian/Catholic person or write B.C. years as negative numbers if you don't want to use this system, though it'll look strange. In practice, you may omit the A.D. or C.E. when writing positive years. Much like with calendars, you should use the United States / East Asian format for date writing. Using years like 20XX and so forth is fine if you want to keep the overall setting of this place "flexible" and not tied to a specific year.